Various Weekend Bits

and I spent most of the weekend hanging out around the house and plowing through the massive unpacking chores ahead of us..  Corinna finally had the opportunity to get the bedroom mostly in order, so the boxes of clothes are mostly gone and things are starting to find their “right place”.  I continued to sort through my stuff, trying to pare down stuff…  I’ve come across even more stuff to give away.. 

Eventually I’ll post a master list of stuff, but if you have the need for a Netgear 8-port 10/100 switch or a SMC 8-port 10/100 wired NAT firewall/router, or a PS1 without any cables or controllers, which I believe still works, but I haven’t touched it in years…  let me know. 

I ordered my TV, it’d be awesome if it came before the weekend, but I doubt that will happen…

Quack

Dad was up this weekend, both for a visit and to bring back Hawkeye.  It had been awhile since he had been up to Boston, and he had the honor of being the first overnight guest in our new house.  The house is still a complete mess, with boxes all over the place, but at least now all of our stuff is in the house now (and out of storage or my parents’ house).  Now it’s just a matter of unpacking it all and putting things in their place.  I’m trying to get rid of as much crap as I can as I unpack things, especially a lot of the geek cruft I’ve accumulated over the years…  I have several boxes which are just full of cables, and that’s just ridiculous!

Anyway, I got home from work a little early to meet with the RCN technician who was there to install the two CableCARDs into my new Tivo Series3 HD.  It took about 45 minutes, some of which was the technician waiting for someone at dispatch to pick up the phone and activate the cards…  You would think they would just do that before sending out the tech, but that would make sense.  Anyway, after the dispatch guy putzed around for like 20 minutes they were eventually up and running with almost all of the channels, but Discovery HD, HDNet, and HDNet Movies had no picture or sound.  I made an executive decision to neglect to mention this to the tech and deal with someone over the phone instead.  This morning I read on the Tivo Community Forums that those three channels were the only members of the HD Tier, so I assumed that the HD Tier was not activated on my account.  Sure enough, a quick call to RCN resolved that (in theory, I’m at work so I can’t test it.. :P).  Now I just have to get an HD television… :P

After the tech left my dad called and said he was mired in traffic on 90..  Pretty unusual, since most people are leaving Boston around that time, but who can predict traffic around here…  Anyway, Dad arrived around 5:30pm, and Corinna got home for work soon afterwards..  After a quick tour of the new place, we hit up the Summer Shack in Cambridge for dinner..  I normally might have preferred the downtown location, but I was pretty hungry and it was a home game for the Red Sox, so it tends to get a little hairy down there…  Dinner was awesome, and afterwards we headed back to the house and took a walk along the Charles before settling in for the night.

Saturday was pretty busy, we left the house pretty early to head over to the Museum of Science.  We weren’t actually going to the museum, though, instead we were picking up a Duck Tour there.  We got there around 11am, but they were already sold out until 3pm, so we ended up heading over to Harpoon Brewery for one of their tastings.  It was a pretty good time, even if I’m not the world’s biggest beer fan.  I did manage to get a case of their draft root beer, which is delicious.  The Duck Tour was OK, but I think it was pretty redundant for someone who’s lived in Boston for 6+ years..  I did learn a bit about Charlestown, which I had never really explored much…   I made some BBQ chicken and grilled veggies for dinner and we watched a movie which was terrible.  Never watch this movie, and reprimand

and

for making me write about it.  I now realize they hate me with every fiber of their being.  Little did they know that not only did they attack me, but their car bomb also took out

and my father.

My dad left Sunday morning, but before he did I made some french toast and bacon for breakfast…  It came out pretty good, I used half a baguette I had lying around for a few days, so it was good and stale and really sucked up the custard.  After dad left there was much napping and eventually we saw Crazy Love with the film club.  It was a small turn-out, but it was a good time.  The movie was almost unbelievable, just a crazy story..  We had a good time afterwards discussing the film and other randomness.. 

turned up towards the end, he was passing by on his way to play pool with

at Flattop’s.  After we finished chilling with the film club peeps we popped over to Flattop’s to say hi to the two of them, which was cool…

Return of the Corn

After

returned from South Dakota on Friday around Midnight, we managed to get a few hours of sleep in before piling into Hawkeye and heading down to NJ. 

was visiting from TN, and I hadn’t seen her in quite awhile (Christmas?).  I also used the opportunity to trade cars with mom for the week and bring the crap I’ve kept in their basement to the new place now that there’s room for it.  It was a really busy 36 hours or whatever…  Saturday night we all went out to Outback to celebrate Father’s Day a little early (since we were all in town at the same time). 

was accompanied by Stosh and her “stepkids” (she and Stosh aren’t married, but she lives with him and helps take care of the kids when they are with Stosh).  They are cute kids, but a handful, and totally reminded me why having kids is a bad idea… =)

Anyway, I was in the basement with Mom and Dad, who were helping me spelunk the basement for my stuff, and helping me bring it out to the car.  My dad was bringing out a box to the car when I looked into my plastic Rubbermaid coffin and noticed the infamous can of corn.  I quickly sprung into action, grabbing the can and bringing it out to the car with the intention of hiding it in his car..  Unfortunately, he caught me as I entered the garage, and quickly proclaimed “Damn it!!”  Apparently, he had just put the can in the coffin a few minutes prior..  This was extra special, because this is EXACTLY how this whole can fiasco started almost 10 years ago when I was packing up to move to RIT (in late August or early September 1997).  The ball is back in my court… for now…

On the way back from NJ we stopped over in Manhattan for a few hours to visit with Sara, Dave, Sappha, and Finn…  To save time, I drove directly to their place down by Battery Park, so we could just blast up the FDR when we were done as opposed to taking the PATH back to NJ then driving from there…  The Holland Tunnel was awful, but the TomTom got us there without too much hassle…    Sara made some awesome baked Mac & Cheese, and we caught up for an hour or two before we hit the road…  Mom’s Honda Pilot treated us pretty well, but I really don’t like driving such a big car, especially when I can’t see out the back..  Fortunately I didn’t have to do all that much backing up…

We got back to Watertown around midnight, and we quickly settled in for the final episode of The Sopranos..  What a way to go out, it was everything I could have hoped for…  Exactly the kind of way I had hoped the series would end, I mean, I wasn’t “expecting” how it turned out, but I really hoped many of the “all wrapped up nicely” theories that were floating around leading up to the finale were wrong…  I’ll leave this spoiler free for awhile, but I’ll try and come back to it at some point…

I am homeless.

[info]coco_b and I woke up this morning, packed the rest of our crap into Hawkeye, and said goodbye to our Comm. Ave apartment for the last time.  I think it was more bittersweet for her than it was for me, being her “first home” and all…  I liked the place, but we’ve been talking about selling it and getting a new place for so long I just think I’ve lost all perspective on the matter.

Corinna called around 12:30 to tell me that the closing on the old place was done, so all that is left is for us to drive out to Needham and close on the new place…  But for the intervening time, I’m homeless….

Movers are a gift from god

The movers, Aviv Moving and Storage, came right on time this morning at 8:45, and they had all our stuff loaded into the truck by 10:30ish.  While they were loading the truck, Mauro dropped off the keys to the new place…  He also mentioned that the road our new place is on was closed for the day due to some power company work.  Fortunately, when we got over there with the moving truck, the cop let us past the cones and the truck made it into the driveway.  It took us awhile to get over there, mostly because we had to come in the “back way” due to the road closing, but we passed several “No Trucks” roads before finding one that would let us turn around and come in the back way.  The guys probably started unloading the truck around 11:15a and were done in an hour.  The total move time was about 3.5 hours, which is at least half of what it would have been had we done it ourselves.

I still have a few small things left in the old place, but I will throw most of that into the car tonight.  Our buyer has her final walkthrough scheduled for 6:30pm tonight, and our closings are at 10am and 3pm tomorrow.  Then, finally, the “buying” phase of operation new home will be complete, and we can move on to the insurgency.

A Quick Update

I’ve been really busy, for obvious reasons, but here’s a quick update as to what’s going on:

  • We’re still go for both closings this Thursday.  Everything seems to be on track, all the repairs to our new place that we asked for in the Purchase and Sale agreement have been taken care of.  In addition, we have a verbal agreement with the seller to move our stuff in on Wednesday (but not ourselves), but we need to get that signed off tomorrow or else our movers will have nowhere to put our stuff on Wednesday morning.  =)
  • Speaking of movers, I’m packing, packing, packing… 

    has been working a ton lately, even this Saturday and today!  So I’ve been doing most of the packing, which is okay with me, especially since this will hopefully be the last move for many years..  I’ve pretty much got most everything except the bedroom packed up now…  Not sure if we will have enough boxes for everything, so there might be a last-minute scramble for boxes tomorrow.  Or, I suppose, we will just have to buy a few boxes from the movers and box up the last of the stuff while they are moving what we have boxed up.  We’ll see though..  Many thanks to

    and

    for helping us out with the boxes.  They just moved into THEIR new place, and the timing just so happened that while they were emptying their boxes we were in need of them…  They were life (or at least wallet) savers!

  • For some reason I’ve started to sort of follow the Red Sox.  I’m not sure what happened, I think it’s

    ‘s fault.  Perhaps it was only a matter of time before I caught the local disease.

  • Yesterday we took a break from work and packing, and headed out to

    ‘s folks house for grilling and pool chicanery.  It was awesome, we had a great time as always…  It was a much needed break from all the adult seriousness the two of us have been dealing with lately…

Busy Weekend!

This was a pretty crazy weekend!  On Friday night I went to Symphony Hall to see Artie Lange, from the Howard Stern Show (and formerly of MadTV).  It was a great time, Jim Florentine and Greg Fitzsimmons opened, both of whom I’ve enjoyed for some time, so it was great to see them live.  The MC was some local guy, who wasn’t that good and got pretty heavily booed, but he handled it well and probably knew what he was in store for… 

Saturday was a hugely busy day for

and I.  After grabbing breakfast, we headed over to the newly-rented storage locker to check it out, and then went across the street and rented a van from U-Haul.  We only really needed the van to move some of the bigger stuff (closet shelves and one of our dressers), but we ended up taking a bunch of other shit that was ready to go over as well.  I think the U-Haul guy was startled when he saw our total mileage was 3 miles in 2 hours, but then again, they are probably used to that in the city.  Moving that big stuff into storage sucked, but not as badly as it could have.  We spent the rest of the day packing away some unnecessary clothes and items..  The goal of all this is to make the apartment look less cluttered when we start showing it (hopefully in April).  This was a good motivator, imho, because the whole house was a mess, so it was hard NOT to be compelled to clean it up.  We ended up getting into a fight, which I guess can be expected when doing something so stressful, but we worked it out.. :)  We took another carload of stuff over Saturday night, and when we got back from that trip,  I turned the car off and realized I could pull up in my spot a bit more.  I went to start the car and it wouldn’t even turn over (even all the instrument lights were working fine).  I’m not entirely sure what’s wrong with it, but I guess I’ll have AAA tow it to my mechanic tonight.  Hopefully it’s just a bad battery, but I guess it could be something far more nefarious…

Sunday was spent cleaning and doing laundry..   I was pretty tired by the end of the day, and was nodding off a little bit on the train ride over to the movie theatre.  The film club saw 300 last night, which was fun…  It was much better than I expected, and while I had some minor criticisms, overall it was a fun flick.

Burned Out Excitement!

and I have been trying to get ready to sell her condo.  We’ve gone to a bunch of open houses, started tying up the projects we’ve been procrastinating on for months now, and started identifying things that we need to sell, give away, or put into storage…  I lined up a 5×5 storage locker for us to keep the stuff we want to move to our new home, but that makes the current place look cluttered to prospective buyers.

This weekend we have several projects to keep us busy, including packing boxes to put in storage, installing the threshold under the bathroom door, painting, electrical, etc…   I know that after we move, there will still be tons of projects to do in the new place, but at least then I won’t feel so guilty about procrastinating, as I won’t be holding up the sale and purchase…  I’m really excited to finish this process and move into our new home…  That said, this weekend is going to suck…  :)